Brillantes: We have sufficient basis to proclaim winners

09:56 PM May 17th, 2013

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May 17th, 2013 09:56 PM

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. maintained that they have sufficient basis to proclaim the winning senatorial candidates Friday after three more were proclaimed.

“We are proclaiming on the basis of official results, we are using the grouped canvass reports … to project whether the [final results] will be affected or not [by the remaining untransmitted Certificates of canvass,]” Brillantes told reporters in an ambush interview.

“The grouped canvass report may be incorporated in the COC once its transmitted, so [it can be] automatically incorporated, the grouped canvass report is only a partial result,” he said.

The Comelec en banc, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC), previously issued resolution 9701 instructing the provincial and city BOC’s who have not yet transmitted their canvassed results, to generate a “Grouped Canvass Result” for the senatorial candidates and to send it immediately to the NBOC “by facsimile.”

In a later resolution, the NBOC was allowed “to use the validated Grouped Canvass Reports submitted by the provincial and city BOCs as basis to determine the votes obtained by all the candidtes for senator.”

Comelec Resolution 9706 read that the move was made “to ascertain whether or not standing of the candidates who may be initially proclaimed as duly elected Senators will be affected by the remaining Provincial and City COCs still to be received by the NBOC.”

“[The] grouped canvass report can take the place of COC as a partial results,” Brillantes said.

When asked if there was something wrong with proclaiming this early, he said it might actually be better and even cited the old manual elections where it would take weeks before a proclamation could be made.